Seventh Day Soliloquy
by angel-death-dealer
Summary: With one day left before the rescue boat arrives, Jack and Kate have some issues to resolve.


**Seventh Day Soliloquy**

The sand lapped around their feet, wet and sloppy from the tide that controlled it. Slowly, it buried the limbs beneath the sand, but not slowly enough for Kate's liking. She knew that every second of silence was words wasted in the mind, and that once his feet were fully buried, the man beside her would get to his feet, allow the larger waves a step before them to wash the remaining, clinging clumps of sand from his bare feet, and then he would wordlessly walk back down the beach, their silence never disturbed, never broken.

It had been that way for days. Kate would already be sitting on the shoreline, and he would come silently to her side, sitting down beside her with a gentle nod of the head; a nod that she returned. No one came and disturbed them. Claire didn't come asking for Kate to babysit. No one came looking for the doctor when someone was hurt. Sawyer didn't come looking for her, wondering what she was doing on the edge of the beach with the man she assured him that she didn't love. Even Juliet didn't come looking for her lover with the current possessiveness that she held over him. No one disturbed them, because there was too many words unspoken between them. Even Sawyer and Juliet knew that there was things that needed to be said. The void between them had reached a depressing point for the entire island, and with rescue supposedly on its way from Naomi's boat, time was running out for those words to be said.

Six days, and no words had been spoken. Neither of them spoke 'hello's or 'goodbye's. Everything was dealt with in silence. They were silent as they shuffled up the beach a few inches occassionally, preventing the ocean from soaking their clothes as it had done the first day. They'd been so focused on trying not to look at the other, whilst working out what they wanted to say, that they hadn't noticed the tide rising high enough to soak the bottom half of their bodies with a small wave. Everything always silent.

Until today.

The seventh day, and they arrived in silence, and began their daily tradition of silence. The rescue would reach them before sundown the next day, and they both knew that time had run out. Tomorrow, there would be no time for this daily routine, as they would all be busy sorting out the belongings that had come to be their own since the crash. They would be saying goodbyes, and exchanging phone numbers with the people who had become their family. They would be packing up and going home.

And Jack and Kate would do that in their silence.

Kate cast a sneaky look at Jack's feet. The sand was almost to the top of his feet, with only an inch or so left to be covered. It was only a matter of moments before he would get up and leave. Licking her lips to take away the dryness that had settled from the salty spray, Kate finally broke the silence, her voice cracked slightly from the effort of speaking after so long a silence.

"You must be happy." Kate said, never taking her eyes away from the crashing waves not to far from them. "Juliet's a beautiful woman." _I bet she stole your heart..._

Jack nodded, almost numbly, facing in the same direction. "Yeah, she is." He answered quietly. _But you're still the most beautiful woman I know._

"She's an amazing person." She continued politely. "Doing what she could for Claire, and Sun. She was amazing." _Everything I wasn't._

"She sure is." Jack whispered back, his voice almost lost on the tide, but their proximity meant that she heard every word. _But she's nothing compared to you._

"I bet you know everything about her by now." Kate realised, her voice ceasing its emotionless state and showing the sadness that really raged within her. _Like you used to know me._

Jack shurgged. "Only the stuff that counts." _I can't remember half the things she says because I'm too busy thinking about you._

Finally, Kate looked away from the tide. For the first time in six days, she met his eyes, as he simultaneously turned to face her. She'd missed this eye contact with him. His chocolate brown eyes had always made her feel safe, even in the most dangerous of places, where all hope had faded into dispair. No matter what happened, she'd always felt safe around him, even when they'd been on worse terms than they were on now. Now, his eyes weren't filled with their previous sparkle. There was none of the playful happiness that had been there, but instead, a supressed longing as he met her eyes.

"I hope you guys last." Kate whispered, hearing the words as if they weren't her own. _Because we never would have._

"I hope we do too." Jack agreed, but his similar tone suggested that he wasn't speaking about Juliet, as Kate was. _Whatever happened to me and you?_

The softness in his eyes brought tears to her own, ones that she swallowed down as a wave swept over her ankles, and she removed her feet from beneath the layer of sand that had built up around them. The burning around her eyes was matched in her throat, and she cleared it with a small cough. "Well, I better go." She announced. _Before I start to cry._

Jack nodded, watching her actions, and staring down at his own feet, which he made no notion to remove. "Yeah, me too." _Please don't cry...I can't take it if you cry._

"Bye." Kate whispered, with a feeling of dread that she might never see Jack properly again after this moment had passed; this moment that she was fleeing because her eyes were fighting a month's worth of tears. _I still love you._

"Bye." Jack replied, looking back to the water as he tried to supress his own burning sensations, swallowing hard with no intention of giving his emotions away. He heard the gentle crushing of sand beneath feet fade away into nothing, and knew that she was gone. If she had looked back as he sat there, he didn't see it. If he had looked to watch if she would turn, he might have stood up and ran to her, against all his better instincts, but actions that his heart pounded for.

Instead, he stared out at the waves, wondering if he could find the same comfort that she used to find from sinking. It had become part of the sinking tradition, it seemed, that a person was left to sink alone. Kate had done it with her mother, but from snap parts of conversation he had picked up that her mother was dead. Now, Kate had walked away, and tomorrow they would be parted, leaving him alone to sink in his solitary silence, with a singular thought drowning him.

_I never stopped loving you._


End file.
